PETER COE VERBICA

Peter Coe Verbica loves writing.  He grew up on a commercial cattle ranch and received a BA and JD at Santa Clara University and MS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  The writer, Corinne Joy Brown, describes him thusly: “Peter Coe Verbica might be the ‘Clark Kent’ of poets - a mild-mannered corporate player with a heart sheathed in steel. (Not a bad combination for someone who slices life into razor sharp bits and helps us see it through his eyes.) His work can be grim, stark and tender; compassion rules the darkest scenes. Rich metaphors are beyond reproach, broadening our understanding.”  Peter’s prose appears in The Missing Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2017), as well as multiple issues of the popular MX Series, edited by David Marcum.  His poetry can be found in scores of anthologies, including: “Fear of Long Words,” The Seventh Wave (Issue 8, 2018), “A Wish for Earth,” Flying South, (2018), “Glass Flowers,” The Esthetic Apostle, (October issue, 2018), “The Arrest,” The Poetic Bond VIII, (2018), “Brazil,” The Esthetic Apostle, (November issue, 2018), “Stain,” Mingled Voices 3, (2019),  “Gold,” CatheXis Northwest Press, (September issue, 2018), “The Village with No Doors,” Sunspot Literary Journal, (2019), “A Flat Moon,” Martin Lake Journal, (Issue 2, 2019), “The Quadrangle,” (Sunspot Literary Journal, 2019), “Forever Grateful,” High Shelf Press, (Issue II, January 2019), “Rain on the Streets,” High Street Press, (Issue V, April 2019), “A Fragile Family,” Owen Wister Review, (2018/19), “Saint Angelo,” Gravitas (Volume 18: Issue 03, 2019), “The Porchlight,” (The Showbear Family Circus, 2019), “From the Scent of Trees,” Mingled Voices 4, (Special Mention, 2020), “Why,” “Dog, Hawk, Laser,” “‘til Death Do Us Part,” “The Little Island,” “The Little Ambassador,” “A Visit with Quentin,” “Dreams of a Burning Man,” “Blankets on the Lawn,” “Tender of Goats,” and “The Bears,” Celebrate Creativity, a Cupertino Poetry Anthology (2020), “El Dorado,” Oslo Writers League Anthology (2020), “Blooming Briefly,” “The Ingeniousness of Indigenous Peoples,” “Let Us,” and “While You Dream,” The Infinity Room Gallery (2020), “Just Because,” Trestleboard (May, 2020) and The Family (Mother’s Day event, 2020), “The Upside Down House,” Solum Literary Journal (Fall, 2020), “Dog in the Freezer,” Poetic Bond X(2020), “A Line of Expectations” and “A Typical Modern Chilean Day,” Mingled Voices 5 (2020).  He is married and has four talented daughters.  He prefers to be outdoors and horseback.

Find him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterverbica/, http://hardwoncowboywisdom.com/, and https://www.facebook.com/akeytothegrove.

THE UPSIDE-DOWN HOUSE

My grandfather lived in an upside-down house.

When he took off his stingy-brim hat,

all his sins fell into ceiling like knives.

Every put-down of his wife and 

drunken familiarity with his daughters.

Each pitting of ranch hand against ranch hand.

Each slaughtered beast bled out in the pens,

then hung, skinned and quartered.

My grandfather lived in an upside-down house

and wore out the soles of his shoes 

walking on the necks of others 

and I was one of them.

Listen, I would like to tell you 

that when he pissed out the window

it made a rainbow up to heaven.

But instead, that thin stream of gold 

left puddles of self-loathing and doubt

which the next two generations 

bathed in like little birds.

My grandfather lived in an upside-down house

but I demolished it with prose and poetry, 

every board and timber, 

pulled out the iron pipes, ripped down the wainscoting,

took a wrecking bar to the hinges, hasps and shingles.

All that’s left is a hayfield now, 

interrupted by a legacy oak, remnants of a river rock chimney

and the skeletons of dry iris stems 

mowed down by a tenant farmer each summer.

I wish I could share with you the joy of watching

my daughters fly kites and ride horseback,

with me never sharing with them

that my grandfather lived in an upside-down house.

Read Peter’s work and more in Solum Journal Volume I.